On the Rise and Fall of the Land of Faerie
by Time Traveler 7
Summary: A short history about the second type of life, faerie, on Apartera Midi Mundi, or the Daedal as the planet's inhabitants lovingly call it. These are not tiny faeries. If you invade their land they will make you scream in pain if they want to hear your screams that day. You cannot have stronger physical attributes (magic in this case) without corresponding behavioral increase.


On the Rise and Fall of the Land of Faerie

The history of Faerie begins with the beginning of life itself. Once upon a time, long, long ago, a cell was born from a unification of magic and natural processes. This cell was the first cell, it grew and it divided and it expanded outwards, surpassing the magic and power of other types of life.

The descendants of this cell split into more magical creatures and less magical creatures. The more magical creatures were simply the Faeries, the less magical were the Dhalaes.

Never did either remain pure, the difference between each was more of a spectrum. Some dholae were more life faeries, some faeries were more like dholae. Many times, without seeming cause, the two mirrored each other's forms, as if they were dancing a dance of life through the eons.

But like all partners, they were two separate entities, rarely intermingling into each other's worlds.

For millions of years the faerie danced with the dhalae and their worlds were separate. But one day, the dancers evolved, together, copying each other in their mysterious way and creatures of both opened their eyes and looked at the same Moon. They observed the same Sun, the same planets and the same world. But they did more than just see, they _saw_ , they _understood_ , they _considered_.

The faerie. The dhalae. New moves in an old dance.

The Elimnar emerged from the dhalae, bright and shining, magic brimming from their lips and emanating from the palms of their hands.

The Episopar emerged from the Faerie, vicious, they _were magic_ , magic was as easily used as their arms or legs, as easy as they spoke and danced and laughed. Magic found a vessel it could not only flow through, but it could consider itself.

These were but the first of their kind, but more emerged over time. And as each race emerged more eyes saw the land of the other and wanted it.

The dhalae used magic like a tool, but the fae used magic like an arm.

Wars broke out between the Lands of the Dhalae and the Lands of Faerie.

Terrible wars. Blood and ichor flowed like rivers. The screams and screeches echoed throughout the spaces of the sky, were absorbed by grass, leaves and trees and echoed endlessly through the caverns of the earth. It is said that in that time nothing could be trusted to be real, not even dreams or sleep or love. That war was total and complete across the globe and that fires burned across the earth and waters rose over the land and swallowed it, re-etching the once familiar continents.

At last, the world forever changed, its face redrawn, the Elimnar and the Fae came to meet on the Far Shores of the Southland and devised a treaty. The borders between Elimnar and Fae would be frozen where they were. Sometimes, entire continents went to either Fae or Dhal. But sometimes continents would be split in half, such was the case with Datlah. Two-thirds of the continent went to the Elimnar, the other third went to the Fae.

As time went on, the Fae lost more ground. Something changed in the world. It grew darker, magic was being lost, as if a force were draining it. The sun grew dimmer, the moon not as white and the people began to age. The Fae, dependent on magic to survive, began to die and the dhalae, not so dependent on magic, took over their land.

But in some places, the Faerie never relinquished control, the wild magic disappeared, but their bread was hardier and found different sources of power, either through the muddying of bloodlines or sojourns through the skin of reality and into others.

The Elimnar fell, their bloodlines crossed into the many Dhal races, and sometimes, not often, but sometimes one is born which can come close to the blood of the Elimnar and it is said a Grey One is born that day. When this happens, the gods say an Elimnar is born again and many vie to make them great.

This happened to one Faror Ravelst, Thirteenth Wizard of the Tenebreux Council, creator of the Imbroglio Empire, Conqueror of Faerie, the Kin-Killer, the Dark Wizard, the Slave Master and the Slave Killer.

Born from Salora and Dil Ravelst of the ex-royal Ravelst family line in the city of Osilon, Faror gave every sign that he was gifted in everything. And his parents recognized this, as did his younger siblings Aeris and Thaan, who were ever in his shadow in Osilon. Faror was gifted, he was an orator, a philosopher, a great magician and scientist, a militarist and many, many other things. Faror was a gifted killer too.

His brother was spared by chance, he left home at the age of twenty-five to go adventuring. His sister was spared by her ingenuity. His parents were spared from seeing the man he would become not two hundred years after their deaths in a fire which nearly trapped their daughter, Aeris who detected the spells her brother used and utilized an obscure form of teleportation to escape.

Faror killed to find answers his parents would never give. There was magic in the family vaults he needed to gain ultimate power, which he never gained but nearly did. But the parents required that the vault only be opened should Aeris and Thaan be present at the opening, and give their sole consent that the vaults be opened.

Thaan returned home to discover that only he and his brother were the surviving members of their family. Faror put on a good show and, believing their sister to be dead, attempted time and time again to use Thaan to open the vault, but never could. Through this he discovered their sister was alive.

Thaan stayed in Osilon for four years. During that time he was a hopeless drunk, wandering the forest either singing shanties or crying to the gods to bring his family back.

Faror took pity upon him and determined his brother was the least of his concerns. He took hegemony over the entire Northern Forest in this time and was expanding into the Plainslands and the dwarves in the Varden Mountains to the north and west. He was also building his slave empire in the Northern Continent, Latinia to the far south and Palad to the south and west. With a sudden increase in his fortunes he was better able to fortify his home in Osilon and place leaders under his thumb.

After four years, Thaan realized that the evidence did not make sense. He searched the city for evidence linking an identity to the arsonist who killed his family, and after months of searching he deduced his brother must have killed their family.

In a drunken rage, Thaan confronted his brother, and they got into a fight which resulted in Thaan retreating from Osilon and roamed the human and dwarven lands further south and west. He remained so for the next sixty years.

Meanwhile, their sister, Aeris, rose through the ranks of the Wizard Council, the regulatory government of the wizards. They saw immediately what Faror was trying to do and attempted to ring him in, but failed many times. Faror also realized that they were trying to stop him and grew careful to never betray himself so they could secure a death sentence on him.

The next sixty years were important to the three siblings.

For Aeris, she became a powerful magus and refined her amazing skill.

For Thaan, he sobered and gained the fighting and thieving skills he would need to become the bard he would become.

For Faror, he gained hegemony over the Old Realm, the Kingdoms of Men, and Morduthksf, Home of the Last Great Kingdom of Orcs. And in his search for ultimate power, he noticed a trend in the death of the Lands of Faerie across the globe and noticed the lack of death on his own continent. Through great augury, he discovered that the Faeries were muddling blood with demons and angels and splicing genes with the Dhalae to stay alive, as well as using several sources of power from darker universes. And in these universe, he spotted the tell-tale sign of the magic he sought, the Face of God.

The faeries were alive because the magic of the Creator sustained them, literally. This was ultimate power, and he knew that if the faeries could use it so could he.

To do this, he broke through the skin of the universe into the Doudnend, the Darker Realm next to ours. Long ago, a race of Drow, Dark Elves, conquered the world and engaged into endless bloodlust and evil, turning that world to mothering but cold, cold desert resembling the old legends of Charn. The sun was big and red, the wind was howling, and it is said he wandered the wastes of Doudnend for years with only his closest compatriot, Fin, for company.

Based on Fin's account, the moment Faror understood that there was only one door open to the Face of God, and that was in the Heart of the Land of Faerie, he vaporized an entire mountain range and turned Doudnend inside out, churning the furnace of the planet with the fires of its dying sun.

 _"I don't think I ever realized the true extent of his power until then. We had ventured into the Drow city of Fixolo again, Faror was certain the answers to create a portal to the Demlia (Face of god), were there. Evidently, what he discovered turned him into a blind rage. The sun rose in the west, and when noon was achieved, visibly, half the sun went dark and half the horizon turned white. The heat of a sun burned the land and I think he destroyed half the planet, because when he emerged from the citadel he said to me, 'It is time for us to leave, my friend. This world is going to be baptized in the fires of redemption. It will become home to demons greater than those in the abyss. I have started the process by stealing power from its sun and fueling the fires in the heart of the planet. The light on the horizon is only the beginning of my magic, by the time the sun is on the eastern horizon the planet will be resurfaced with molten rock.' And we broke through the skin of realities and traversed it into Belladora, the Light of the Three…"_

 _-The Story of Faror_

Magi who opened portals to Doudnend report the surface has been turned to molten rock, the sky is yellow and red and temperatures soar as high as the stars in the sky and that through their augury, discovered that Doudnend's sun is still half-dark. Whatever strange magic Faror worked that day is still in effect on Doudnend. Indeed, Faror had power to rework reality even then, it is a wonder why he did not stop there.

Fin reports that Faror devised a plan in the heat of the destruction of Doudnend. In Belladora, the entire world have fallen to an invasive species of Malijhazhak, both fae and dhal fell and the sun now only shines upon never ending fields of vines and stems ten miles high baring the seeds aloft into the skies of Belladora. The drow in contact with doorways to Belladora documented the effects of Malijhazhak on the inhabitants of the planet and determined that it would cover the entire planet, even the oceans, and kill all life on Belladora except itself.

Faror saw this plant as an opportunity to destroy the Land of Faerie once and for all and receive his ultimate power. The drow observed that the Malijhazhak infected the minds of the faeries, turning them into rabid animals, and before the storm of Malijhazhak, the faerie cleared the dhalae off the face of the planet. After which the faerie turned on themselves and it was entirely possible that when the Malijhazhak achieved total blanket across Belladora that there were no faeries to destroy.

So Faror took a seed of Malijhazhak and changed its genetic code in his sanctum sanctorum deep under the ground in Osilon. The new strand only attacked faeries, turned faeries against themselves, made them more violent and aggressive, allowed his direct intervention in their minds, thoughts and emotions and recognized him and him alone as his master, so that only he could stop its' spread.

The plan he devised, one hundred sixty years in the making, was almost finished. Now all he needed was a unification of the races so that they may declare war on the Land of Faerie in unison, restart the Fae Wars and officially destroy them forever from the surface of the world, after which Faror would destroy the Malijhazhak and take the magic of the Creator Himself.

For the next twenty years, he created the Tenebreux Council which garnered hegemony and devised a plan to unify the Kingdoms of the Races into a singular Kingdom, the Imbroglio Empire. Planting the Malijhazhak on the Eastern Shore of the Land of Faerie, he invaded the Hive Mind of the Faeries and caused them to attack and expand upon the lands of the races. This created a unifying threat and alliances were formed, and later, alliances were liquidated into a singular empire under a singular ruler controlled by a singular elf named Faror Ravelst.

But eighty years earlier, Thaan travelled to the Northern Continent and discovered his brother's criminal empire, and he determined to destroy it. He and his sister, ousted their brother from the local politics, ended the slave trade on the continent and unified the lands of the North into a singular country. The Wizard Council maintained the new Nordic Empire and despising the man who had inflicted terror upon them, declared war on the Imbroglio Empire and aiding the Land of Faerie in their war.

Faror, achieving mgic far greater than any wizard in millions of years, was a tough man to defeat. It took the greatest magical minds on the Council to determine a weakness in the Malijhazhak and practiced a sort of, psychic hack upon it. A small party of norsemen and wizards invaded the Malijhazhak wastes covering a sixth of the continent and planted a neurotis farm. A neurotis is a psychic growth, easily attacked and changed psychically to act as a conduit and brain for a psychic onslaught. A neurotis is alos easily absorbed into Psychic Edifice Matrices, and to keep their programming intact, which was essentially what the Faeries and the Malijhazhak utilized.

An apt analogy would be: they hooked a USB drive into the computer, downloaded a virus which changed the software and opened an easily hackable back door into the operating system.

Thaan, now a powerful bard of legend. Wielded is sword, Raudnaur, from the same vaults his brother tried to get into two centuries before, into battle on a golden dragon.

Aeris, teleport killed many a foe and wielded power not remotely comparable to her brother, but was powerful nonetheless.

A party of adventurers with fae, demon and angelic blood entered the fray and annihilated the forces of Faror.

A party of the best wizards in the land connected with the neurotis inside the Malijhazhak, now covering nearly the entirety of the Land of Faerie, like a mastic tumor, and turned off the Malijhazhak.

Faror rode into battle, spells on his breath, resembling an Elimnar in full. He was a man who could turn stars dark. Was he not already a god then?

Thaan, understanding the power of his brother, decided to destroy him. An old friend, an ancient paladin, servant of the god Pelor, rode into battle with him on his dragon, and baring the visage of Pelor himself, the paladin struck a mighty blow to Faror, throwing him from his dragon and onto a ridge over the battlefield where there was no fighting, where the brothers could at last duke it out.

Faror was essentially stripped of his power, but he still had great dexterity, wisdom and intelligence on his side.

Thaan was a bard with a silvertongue, he was not as good with a sword or spellwork, but he and his sister united the Northern Continent and ousted the slave traders from their work.

They killed each other.

A fitting end for each. Thaan had devoted his life to destroying his brother, and all it took was a single swipe from Raudnaur, which had absorbed some of his brother's magic, and broke through the wards protecting Faror's neck. Faror, devoted to ultimate power, was killed by his own, captured in his brother's sword, but he delivered the final blow to Thaan with a death curse, utilizing the last of his god-like energy to curse Thaan and his attempts to save the Land of Faerie, as well as his entire bloodline and their sister's as well.

Adamis the Paladin of Pelor watched, as his friend literally turned into a plume of ash which scattered his remains on the four winds. And Aeris exploded in a plume of fire, killing anyone within range of her detonation.

The Malijhazhak disappeared, turning much of the land of Faerie to desert. And what was left of the Land of Faerie was cut off from the Demlia and decayed into nothingness, dhalae life won out and took over the land.

The Imbroglio Empire, whose very task it was to settle the Land of Faerie, splintered into seven different empires, and each colonized the Land of Faerie with varying degrees of success.

Four hundred years have since passed. Half the desert which covered the Land of Faerie has turned to forest, tundra, grassland and jungle. The rest will likely remain desert.

Faerie Fountains and Forests and small kingdoms of Fae can still be found throughout the world, it is unlikely they will dwindle any time soon.

The source of Faror's magic has remained unknown, and that is good, as perhaps not even the Elimnar carried so much power with them in a single individual.


End file.
